


Gray World

by FantasieBook



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: James Potter & Lily Evans Potter Live, M/M, Powerful Harry Potter, Seer Harry Potter, Slytherin Harry Potter, Smart Harry Potter, Wrong Boy-Who-Lived (Harry Potter)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-31
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:08:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24471796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FantasieBook/pseuds/FantasieBook
Summary: Harry had always done everything for his brother. He loved him. But now the war is coming to Hogwarts and they both have to choose one side. Can their love for each other survive or will Harry's secrets destroy both of them?
Relationships: Harry Potter/Tom Riddle | Voldemort
Comments: 16
Kudos: 509





	Gray World

He stared at the boy, his reflection. Distorted, as if a thousand cracks disturbed its surface and shattered the image.

"No, Nick," he said firmly. So many details that were incorrectly reflected because the glass was broken.

"But you always drive with your friends! Can't we even drive together?" The glass? Maybe the reflection was just so much nicer than the person in front of the mirror.

"No. Nick, that's mine. These are my friends and I don't want to share them with you," he said firmly. Nick stared at him angrily and tears sparkled in his eyes.

"You're such a selfish ass, Hadrian!" Nick shouted, storming away. Didn't see his reflection twitch slightly and pain flit across his features.

Hadrian had dedicated his whole life to his brother, the twin everyone loved. Everyone liked the hero, the boy who lives, the cheeky, confident and loud Nikolas Potter. And Hadrian loved him too, downright adored him. He had always made Nick happy and had always been there for him. Even if everyone else let him down, he had stood by his side, helped him, and disappeared in the shadows when they crowded around him again, celebrating him as heroes.

It was okay. Sure, it had hurt and he'd been hurt and sometimes he wished he was more like Nick. A child that everyone just seemed to love. But he was okay. He knew no other way.

Harry hadn't protested at the age of three when their birthday party consisted of wild water battles with children he barely got along with. He hadn't protested when he was six when private tutors were hired for Nick while nobody cared about his education. He had never protested, not once. Not even when Nick was taught the heir's duties at age eight, although Harry was the older twin, or when Nick decided on his eleventh birthday that he wanted to go to a Quidditch game, although it had been agreed that Harry would decide that year was allowed and he wanted to go to a reserve for magical animals. 

And he would have liked to share this train ride. He would have liked to spend time with his twin, who was constantly surrounded by everyone and seemed to forget him, but he knew that Nick would not accept his friends, at least not all of them. And he couldn't. They were his friends, the few people who had chosen him over Nick and he couldn't just give them up. Not even for his brother.

He turned to the clock that hung over the wall opposite the front door and guessed how much time he had left before his parents would take Nick to the platform. Ten minutes? He picked up the book he had started reading last night and sat on the floor.

He knew that his parents would just leave him here if he didn't wait when they wanted to go. That wasn't really a problem. Harry was an early riser, his suitcase was always packed on time, and he had enough time to wait an hour or two before the train departure in the manor's entrance hall.

He wouldn't go into the Hogwarts Express in school uniform like Nick and many other pure-blooded or half-blooded students did, because as proud as his parents were of the red accents of Nick's school uniform, they were ashamed of his green. So Harry wore a plain blue cloak that he would exchange for his uniform on the train.

"Tipsy, bring the suitcase," his father ordered as he entered the entrance hall and gave his eldest son a quick, unhappy look, as if even the neutral robe reminded him that Harry was in the house he was most at hated and despised.

The house elf appeared with Nick's large suitcase and Harry knew that even though it was filled to the brim, it still didn't contain everything. Each year, his parents sent Nick schoolbooks he'd forgotten, cloaks, the Marauder's Map, even his owl he'd forgotten once.

Harry had once forgotten a book he had been reading the previous night and asked them to send it to him, but they only scolded him that it was his responsibility and they were not his servants. By Christmas vacation he had had to ask Professor McGonagall to use an old copy and he remembered how embarrassing it had been. Especially because at that time he didn't even have support in his own house and everyone had teased and laughed at him.

He didn't have to wait long for his mother after his father's arrival and for Nick, who demonstratively ignored him, except for the occasional angry glances.

His mother gently took Nick's arm and suitcase and Apparated from the entrance hall. Harry winced as his father grabbed his shoulder with a hard, rough grip and his fingers dug into his shoulder. After a brief, uncomfortable feeling, they stood on platform 9 3/4, the red Hogwarts Express stood on the platform and emitted steam. 

Nick and his mother were only a few yards away, already besieged by reporters and schoolmates. Harry watched his father walk up to them and no one looked at him anymore. No one said "goodbye" or "until Christmas" and maybe that was a good thing because Harry hadn't come home on vacation for years, except during the summer vacation when he had no choice.

He got on the train, in the last wagon. They met here every year and, as usual, most of his friends were already there. The Potters came late every year, at least once, in Harry's second year, when they Apparated to the track half an hour before the train left and just left Harry behind.

"Potter," Daphne Greengrass called, stroking her light blonde hair a little nervously behind her ears. Harry greeted her calmly, almost softly. He never spoke aloud and the teachers asked him to repeat what he had said for the first two years. He rarely had this problem now, where he had the respect among his vintage colleagues that they were silent when he spoke. Of course not by everyone. 

Nicks small fan base and some other students liked to make sure no one understood him, but Harry didn't mind. They were the ones who would not hear his answer and he knew that he could answer them. 

A whistle sounded from outside and the last students jumped up. Harry could see Nick being hugged by her mother for the third time in the last few minutes and then having to sprint to the train.

The platform seemed to be moving, the people were disappearing and they were leaving the station one more time for another trip to Hogwarts.

Harry applied a strong lock spell on the car door and then concentrated to make the partitions between the compartments disappear and to create an oval table in the middle instead of the rows of seats on the wall, where they could all be seated.

His friends sat down and Harry also silently took up a chair. He neither saw the longing eyes on the seats next to his, nor did he notice the red cheeks of Susan Bones who managed to take one of these seats. He simply pulled out a book with the intention of reading and listening to conversations where his classmates reported on their summer and tried to outdo themselves with the most impressive and exciting stories.

Sometime during the train ride (Katie Bell was just telling how she had gotten an offer from two professional Quidditch teams who offered to play with them after their final year of school) Harry felt a slight tug in his mind, the words in his book were always vague again in front of his eyes and dissatisfied he pressed his lips together for a few seconds.

Finally he sighed, looked around, and made sure the others were very focused on Katie before allowing the vision and staring blankly at his book.

_"My Lord" A blond man - obviously Lucius Malfoy, whose son was with Harry as well as many other students and tried to impress him with his stories about the summer - bowed to the figure of a handsome young man and lay in his eyes Awe, admiration and fear._

_"The Potters" - he spat out the name as if he was something disgusting - "looking for their son, the seer. It seems they have lost control of him." The young man, the dark lord, grinned wildly and amused and his ruby eyes sparkled happily and dangerously at the same time._

_The red eyes turned to him, so cruel and understanding, so full of greed and desire that it made him shiver._

Harry blinked slightly and refocused on his book, but his thoughts stayed with the vision. Insights into the future were mostly brief, always vague, and there was never a guarantee that it would happen the way he saw it. The future was subjective and changed with every decision. There were events, milestones that were immutable. No matter who made which decisions, it would always amount to these events, but most of it was changeable and uncertain, unlike the past or the present.

Harry sincerely hoped that what he saw was changeable, because the way he saw it, his ability as a seer had become known - of course, both sides of the war would try to convince him to fight for them - and he had absolutely no intention of ever to say what he was.

When he returned to the conversation around him, he noticed that the subject had changed. Draco Malfoy spoke in an important voice and the tip of his nose in the air about the things he got thanks to his father.

"Something is imminent," he said, as if he knew what it was. "Father said a new student is coming to Hogwarts this school year and we should be very respectful. He warned me how powerful and dangerous he would be."

"What year is this student in?" Asked Blaise Zabini, scrutinizing his well-groomed fingernails as if he was looking for flaws that didn't exist.

Blaise was a somewhat strange boy - not because he was gay or dark-skinned, as some Muggleborns said, because they were used to these prejudices from the Muggle world - but because he was so incredibly extreme about his appearance most of the time, but when you look at him really excited, he could take on Draco Malfoy in a duel that was trained on it for half his life. Maybe Blaise was also trained, they didn't know that because they mostly didn't talk much about home education. Who talked about learning at home at school?

"A year above us, I think," said Draco, looking very pleased with himself because he had this information. Unobtrusively, he gave Harry an almost hopeful look who didn't look up from his book.

"I don't think it's important," said Daphne disinterestedly. "No matter how powerful he is, we will only find out how much you can expect from him over time, at least we should have met him before we worry"

The rest of the train ride they talked about random things. Quidditch, learning goals, students they weren't happy to see again. Nobody even dared to pronounce the name Nick Potter, they remembered Harry's outburst of rage very well, which followed that a Slytherin who graduated last year had insulted Nick Potter within earshot of Harry. It wasn't something anyone wanted to risk pulling on themselves. So they avoided this topic and for safety's sake largely the students who were constantly around the boy.

"Zacharias Smith is unbearable," Susan Bones muttered unhappily and several other Hufflepuffs quickly agreed.

"Ask Michael Corner," suggested Mandy Brocklehurst.

"The guy who changes girls more often than his underwear?" Katie Bell piqued. "You'd think the girls would notice at some point"

"They do, but that doesn't stop Corner from getting any satisfaction. He hid in the seventh-year showers once and I've heard he threatened some if they didn't do what he wanted," explained Mandy.

There was a general sigh and roll of eyes because that was Hogwarts. An elite school where the students were completely on their own, as some said. The Slytherins were almost lucky with their head of house, because Professor Snape seemed to be the only one who took care of it, at least a little.

**

Harry's place in Slytherin had changed a lot since he was in school.

Back when he came to the table as the first grader, who was mainly the children of those who had fought his parents in the war, he had been an outcast and everyone had made it clear. They had banished him to the end of the table, the seats around him were always vacant, and the unit that Slytherin had always defined was broken.

It didn't extend to Harry. Now he was still sitting on the edge, his place he had claimed for himself, but the students were sitting around him, paying attention and no one seemed to care about his parents anymore.

He wasn't stupid. This was Slytherin. If he had been someone else, less powerful, less intelligent, he would never really have been part of the house, but that was all. And at some point they had accepted it.

He avoided looking at the teacher's table while sorting the first graders. His tutor would be staring at him again, frustrated and contemptuous, and wondering what he could do for him. Professor Snape hated Harry. It was nothing personal, nothing Harry could do anything for. Still, Harry could understand it and it was the only reason he never really complained and never tried to do anything about it.

His father had tormented Professor Snape throughout school, made him a laughing stock, and risked his life. And now that he was finally able to defend himself, James was out of his reach because he would be taken to Azkaban immediately if he attacked the boy-who-lived-father.

Harry was the replacement. Nobody cared about the invisible twin, the eldest son, whom nobody ever considered an heir, even though it was his _right_.

And so he would accept the ridicule and unjust detention and pray that his childhood visions would never come true because he knew it would destroy his teacher.

"That will be it, isn't it?" Daphne asked with mild interest, staring at the teenager who was being fetched from a chamber that was behind the teacher's desk. He was tall, slim, and pretty. The girls' eyes immediately stuck to him, seemed to assess him, evaluate him.

"This is Tomarin Gaunt, a new student who will be attending our great school from now on. Mr. Gaunt, if you would put the hat on." The headmaster looked a little tense, the smile was wrong and the sparkle in his eyes looked more like it concerned.

The teenager gave Professor McGonagall, who was standing next to the stool, a stunning smile, almost teasing, and sat down on the stool in an elegant movement. The hat hadn't even touched his head before shouting his selection into the hall.

"Slytherin!" The green table clapped and the teenager turned to them almost smugly, as if he expected them to all dance to his pipe soon. Harry pursed his lips slightly and wondered what connection he had to the Gaunt family. To Voldemort's family.

**

The dark lord could hardly suppress the grin when he noticed the many admiring looks that were directed at him. It was amusing to sneak under the Headmaster's nose and corrupt his students in his school, but he had two reasons why he was here and none of them was to annoy the Headmaster. Well, maybe three.

First, he wanted to take back the Slytherin house, secure the loyalty of this new generation, and maybe some of them would start teaching. Merlin knew that the defense teachers of the past years left a lot to be desired.

Secondly, he wanted to get to know the boy-who-lives better and ... corrupt him. Neutrality would be enough. It would strike a deep blow to the morale of the bright side if their chosen mascot suddenly announced that he didn't feel like fighting.

And thirdly. He would keep an eye on the boy who was the _real_ boy-who-lived. The one who had survived the curse of death at the time and had now become the best student in the year, much to the frustration of many of his followers who would rather have seen their own children there.

"May I sit down?" He asked politely the small group of seventh graders who nodded and made a little space.

"I'm Adrian Pucey," said one of the boys. His eyes passed lazily over him once, as if they were evaluating him, and it took a little getting used to. He would hardly admit it, but he had not been looked at so judgingly for a long time and he still wondered what they saw. The mighty dark lord that he was? An average teenager? He doubted both.

"I guess you already know my name," he said dryly. The boy gave a small grin. "So how come you come to Hogwarts?"

"My parents died a few weeks ago and although I'm seventeen I don't really have a wish to live alone for a year and only in the company of my private tutors," he said, and the lie flowed easily from his lips. "So I decided to actually spend my last school year here, my cousin helped me with it" The boys expressed their condolences, which he accepted with a slight nod before finally looking around the hall and aiming for his goals.

Nick Potter was sitting at the Gryffindor table, surrounded by admirers and friends. They seemed to be talking loudly and he puzzled a little how to get in touch with the boy. Probably best through his brother.

His eyes wandered around his own table and found the boy also in the middle of a cluster of students. They were calmer, the boy seemed more focused on an open book, because his surroundings and his classmates tried not to disturb him.

The dark lord had some easy conversations with the seventh graders until dinner ended and the students went to their common rooms. He followed them, remembering that he shouldn't know how to get to the Slytherin common room.

His group was one of the first to arrive, so he witnessed an almost fascinating event. Another group of students entered, Hadrian Potter at the top, and the attention automatically seemed to focus on him. He even felt how it worked on himself and found himself staring at the calm boy who approached a few armchairs and sat on one of them. He hardly seemed to notice, except for the few annoyed looks he gave to some who stared at him too long.

The other students in his group hastily tried to conquer the armchairs around him and he couldn't help but be amused.

He nodded to the group, raised an eyebrow, and asked an unspoken question. Pucey smiled weakly.

"Hadrian Potter," he said, shrugging his shoulders almost apologetically. "Quite powerful and fairly intelligent. Rumor has it that he had had an argument with the headmaster in his third year and since then McGonagall flinches every time she looks at him. It was funny at first, but I think he's more like that now annoyed by it "

"He doesn't look ... dangerous," he said, though he knew it didn't mean anything. It was true. Hadrian Potter looked about as dangerous as a cuddly muff, with the big green eyes, fair skin and so thin stature. Every breath of wind seemed to knock him over.

"Hm. Ask Flint. He was a seventh grader when Hadrian was in third grade and made the mistake of attacking his brother after a Quidditch game that he and his team lost. He was never in a room with Hadrian as long as he needed to reach the next door." Pucey chuckled angrily.

The prefects came in with the first graders while the dark lord pondered the newly acquired information. On the one hand, the Potter didn't seem to be really aware of his influence on his classmates, on the other hand, he was very aware of his power.

Severus Snape came in, greeted the first graders, looked anxiously in his direction, because like most Death Eaters, he had already known him as the dark lord in this form, and finally exhorted them to abide by the rules, or at least not to get caught leave when they straightened out some of the rules.

"Is that understood, Potter?" He hissed at the end, staring at the fragile-looking teenage boy with his look of death, a look that almost killed most Death Eaters in fear as the other boy bowed his head slightly and muttered an acknowledgment.

When the professor left, Hadrian Potter watched him for a few seconds, eyes on something only he could see. The wrinkled forehead smoothed slightly and he turned his gaze back to the book.


End file.
